Statement of the Commissioner-General to the Advisory Commission

I am pleased to welcome you to our second
meeting this year. As on previous occasions, we have come together at a
time when our region is fraught by dramatic developments. I view the relationship
between UNRWA and the Advisory Commission as particularly important in
an environment that is so highly charged, so politically vexing and increasingly
problematic for the Agency's operations. Together, we have worked hard
to re-charge this Commission's sense of mission and to nurture our relationship.
And as the challenges confronting UNRWA increase, so does the value of
the support this Commission provides, and the importance of that support
to the well-being of Palestine refugees.

II. Regional Developments

oPt: I wish I could begin on a
positive note, but I am afraid that the realities of the West Bank and
Gaza leave me no choice by to sound an alarm. This past Wednesday, two
of our area staff, Hassan Ahmad El-Leham and Abdul Fateh Hussein Abu-Ghali
lost their lives in the crossfire of inter-factional violence. We were
left with no choice but to partially suspend our operations in Gaza. Given
the dire humanitarian needs of the most vulnerable refugees, this was a
difficult decision, fortunately now rescinded in the wake of the relative
calm prevailing so far since Hamas has taken complete control of the Gaza
Strip. We are now carefully watching the situation in the West Bank.

Over a year has passed since the imposition
of comprehensive international sanctions on the Palestinian Authority.
We predicted that such a drastic step would lead to terrible consequences,
and we are witnessing their full impact today. The results are plain to
see: internal conflict, the collapse of the economy and an uncertain future,
particularly as regards a viable Palestinian state along the 1967 lines.

One consequence of the year and a half
boycott has been a surge in the demand for UNRWA services. Our regular
services, in particular in the health sector, are under severe strain as
those refugees who formerly could afford alternative services turn to UNRWA
in the face of economic hardship. Demand has also risen sharply for emergency
assistance. In many cases, refugees have sought assistance for the first
time after decades of self-reliance. Despite the mechanisms put in place,
as with the TIM, in an attempt to ameliorate the salary crisis, demand
continues to grow.

I often express my admiration for the
strength and dignity of the Palestinian people, and in particular for the
resilience of its social fabric. Years of armed conflict, humiliation and
dispossession did not succeed in denting their values. Today, what I see
in Gaza are people desperately struggling to maintain these societal values.
With the advent of the National Unity Government, I believed that an opportunity
had arisen for the international community to resume its support to the
Palestinian people. I take this opportunity to reiterate my call to you
to re-engage with the Palestinian people. I make this call with the utmost
urgency, for the sake of peace and for the sake of saving human lives.

Given UNRWA's extensive field presence
in the occupied Palestinian territory, our staff have found themselves
on the frontline, facing the full force of grave conditions in both Gaza
and the West Bank. The hopelessness of the situation and the ensuing radicalization
of Palestinian society have led to hitherto unheard of attacks on our staff,
in particular that on our Field Director in Gaza two months ago. These
developments have forced UNRWA to review drastically its modus operandi
in Gaza, negatively affecting our operations and limiting our operating
space. Even so, I am proud to say that my staff continue to persevere and
manage, against the odds, to remain highly motivated. John Ging is unable
to be here to brief you on the initiatives he and his colleagues have undertaken
in Gaza field to improve the quality of education and to provide a summer
full of meaningful activities for almost 200,000 children. He is determined
to ensure that these programmes go ahead, albeit with a slight delay. The
Director of my Office, Michael Kingsley-Nyinah will read a message from
John under the next agenda item.

The Director of my Office and I are now
the only international staff based at Gaza Headquarters, and there is little
prospect of my international colleagues returning, even in the medium term.
As a result, more permanent, if very inconvenient, arrangements are currently
being made for our international staff to work from Jerusalem and Amman.

In the West Bank, aside from recent events
resulting from the internal conflict, the burden of ever more difficult
access within the territory, as well as to East Jerusalem, is a matter
of concern. The obstacles to free movement are increasingly effective,
namely the checkpoints and roadblocks, settlement growth and the wall with
its attendant regime of segmentation and isolation. More stringent controls
at the entry points into Jerusalem, currently being developed from the
Israeli side, will severely impair access by refugees to services and disrupt
the functioning of our West Bank Field Office. Our new West Bank Deputy
Director, Barbara Shenstone, will brief you on the latest developments.
And sadly, we are seeing the legendary steadfastness of the Palestinians
waning. Many of those who have the wherewithal to leave are doing so, many
others are planning -- or wishing -- to depart. The seriousness of this
new phenomenon is demonstrated by a recent fatwa by the Mufti, banning
emigration from the territory.

Lebanon: In Lebanon, the past
weeks have seen a resurgence of dramatic events. Some months ago, camp
leaders in Nahr el-Bared expressed their concern as armed persons from
outside the camp - and outside the region - established a presence in
the camp. The ensuing events are familiar to us all.

Open warfare between the Lebanese army
and the militant group in the camp caused more than 25,000 refugees to
flee. Some remain in the camp under very precarious humanitarian and security
circumstances. Richard Cook, the Director of our Lebanon Office, will provide
you with details on these circumstances. I cannot commend enough the efforts
of our staff and those of other agencies as they exert admirable efforts
to assist refugees and others in need. Sadly, we lost one staff member,
Adel Khalil, to sniper fire on 21 May. And one staff member still in the
camp remains unaccounted for.

Amidst all the gloom, we are grateful
for the generous response to our $12.7 million flash appeal. Once the guns
fall silent, we will be in a position to assess the damage and prioritize
re-building, the clearing of mines and unexploded ordnance, and other projects
that will be required to reinstate the refugees in Nahr El-Bared. From
what we know about the likely extent of the damage to the refugee camp,
it is apparent that additional funding will be necessary.

UNRWA's operations in the rest of Lebanon
continue with no interruption, thanks to the commitment of our staff, and
the Agency remains in close contact with the Lebanese Government, to ensure
emergency aid and security coordination. It is particularly noteworthy
that the Camp Improvement Initiative, launched last year in close cooperation
with the Government, is continuing apace.

III. Issues to be dealt with during the
session of the Advisory Commission

Let me turn to the issues to be dealt
with during this session of the Advisory Commission. The agenda is a particularly
substantive and comprehensive one, reflecting many policy issues facing
UNRWA. Preparing for this session and providing the Commission with all
the reports it has requested has been a labour-intensive challenge. I hope
the Commission will find that the Agency has succeeded in giving it sufficiently
meaningful input so that you, as the Advisory Commission, can provide the
advice and assistance which you are mandated to provide to me.

a. Organizational Development and
Reform

I am pleased to report that the reform
process is well and truly underway. My Deputy, Filippo Grandi, will brief
you more extensively on how the process has developed since we last met.
I am heartened by the progress I have seen during some of the week-long
workshops which have been organised in the fields to engage all staff in
UNRWA's evolving approach to management and the cascading of accountability
down the hierarchical ladder. The response of our staff, in particular
the area staff that form the backbone of the Agency, has been enthusiastic
and constructive. This augurs well for the transformation of work processes
and management culture which the Organizational Development Plan seeks
to achieve. The harnessing of some of the "levers of change"
is already well advanced and the strengthening of some indispensable field
functions will soon bear fruit. Discussions are beginning on optimizing
the staffing structure so that the Agency's human resources can serve refugees
more efficiently and effectively.

Funding for the OD process has been quite
satisfactory until now. I must, however, remind colleagues that the OD
is a three-year process and that resources will continue to be required
for 2008 and 2009. In an attempt to compress the financial requirements
to the extent possible, as you will recall, UNRWA is seeking 20 additional
posts from the United Nations Regular Budget. In consultation with the
UN Secretariat, we will be focussing on ten posts for the upcoming biennium,
with the remaining ten to be incorporated in the 2010 to 2011 biennium
budget. Your support until now has been invaluable, and I hope that the
countries you represent will continue to make their voices heard in New
York, when the UN budget is debated and adopted later this year.

Let me speak briefly about the cluster
of issues that include the programme strategy, the biennium budget, the
financial situation and our resource mobilization strategy. The clustering
of these related subjects is the reason for a particularly large (and long)
agenda item, but I hope you agree that it is necessary to bring together
the entire gamut of processes which will guide our work in the coming biennium.
As stressed often in the run-up to this discussion, our overall strategy,
and the programme management cycle which will derive from it, is currently
being developed. They will, therefore, fully inform the 2010-11 budget.
Anxious to move ahead as far as possible in the meanwhile, we have worked
on an interim programme strategy which incorporates our state of thinking
thus far. We also developed further the budget assumptions presented to
you early this year, and followed up with the draft biennium budget summary
now before you. It will be of great use for us to hear your comments on
these documents, as this will inform our own preparations for the substantive
budgetary discussions at the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary
Questions (ACABQ), and at the Fifth Committee of the General Assembly in
the autumn.

Drafting a budget for UNRWA remains laden
with dilemmas. As much as we would like to heed the call of some of our
stakeholders to base our budget on the full implementation of our mandate
- that is, to fully address the needs of refugees - the sad reality of
recent years has been that such an approach has not yet ensured that our
budget is fully funded. As a result, we are forced to attempt to "blend"
the quantitative calculation which would emanate from a needs-based approach
with a realistic funding outlook. Ramadan Al Omari, our Comptroller, will
present the current financial situation of the Agency, and his data should
not come as a surprise: it includes a projected funding gap of over 100
million US dollars for 2007 for the General Fund and a similar shortfall
currently expected for our Emergency Appeal. [Simply put, UNRWA is currently
200 million dollars in the red.]

In a similar vein, it would be preferable
for the Resource Mobilization Strategy to be driven by the objective of
full funding of all Agency programmes. However, we are forced to prioritise
our scarce resources towards direct delivery of essential services rather
than to indirect investment in fund-raising for potential additional resources.
I hope you will see the strategy in this light and support the thrust and
dynamics it aims to deliver, within the strict overall financial constraints
we face.

c. The 2006 Annual Report to the General
Assembly

You have before you a draft of my Annual
Report to the General Assembly. It covers the 2006 calendar year and will
be discussed at the session of the Special Political and Decolonization
Committee (SPDC), which will take place in November in New York. The report
is made available to you to form the basis on which to draft the contents
of the "Letter of the Chairperson of the Advisory Commission to the
Commissioner-General". The annual report describes the Agency's activities
during the year. You will notice that we have striven to reflect both programme
objectives and delivery in the report, alongside relevant performance indicators.

The report covers the period during which
the seeds were sown for the current crises in the occupied Palestinian
territory. It is ironic to note that the present circumstances are so dire
that the intifada years appear as relatively prosperous ones. In 2006,
our hopes for major economic support and development following "Gaza
disengagement" were bluntly and unceremoniously frustrated. The overall
security situation and the emergence of factional fighting contributed
to a downward spiral which continues to this day. The rapidly increasing
humanitarian needs led to a dramatic review of the UN consolidated Appeal
(CAP), and the response of our traditional donors was swift and generous.
In Lebanon, war raged during the summer and UNRWA was again propelled into
an emergency relief mode. 2006 also marks the beginning of implementation
of our reform process

Not so long ago, the discussion of the
Chairperson's letter formed the sole agenda item of the Advisory Commission,
which met, briefly, once a year. We have come a long way since then! The
success of this revitalised intergovernmental advisory organ is due to
the hard work done by all, in particular by you, Mr. Chairman, and by your
Vice-Chair, Mr. Ali Mustafa. So, in closing, I should like to thank very
warmly the Netherlands and Syria for guiding this process. I would like
to particularly commend Mr. Frans Makken, whose able leadership has so
smoothly brought us through the recent transitional period of the "new"
Advisory Commission. And I thank Switzerland, the United States, Canada
and the European Commission, for steering the sub-committees set up to
prepare the way for the Advisory Commission itself. I am confident Syria
and Norway, who take on the bureau functions on 1 July, will continue this
excellent trend and lead the Commission to continue to provide useful advice
and assistance to me, and to UNRWA, thereby contributing to a better fulfilment
of our duty to serve the Palestine refugees.